Urban Experts Get Crash Course in City's Revitalization
Efforts

By Lavinia EdmundsInstitute for Policy Studies

International urban experts got a crash course in the city's
revitalization efforts from Baltimore's leaders and community
advocates June 17 to 21 at the 30th annual International Fellows
Program sponsored by the Institute for Policy
Studies.

More than 50 scholars from as far away as New Zealand
addressed "Baltimore in Transition: How Do We Move from Decline
to Revival?" During the four-day conference, the group toured the
Inner Harbor and the West Side downtown development and a range
of neighborhoods from distressed to upper-income. They had
briefings on the challenges facing policy-makers in Washington,
D.C., from members of the Maryland congressional delegation and
from big city mayors including Baltimore's Mayor Martin
O'Malley.

"The conference focused the best thinking and experience
from around the world on the challenges facing Baltimore. We were
fortunate in having leaders from throughout the city join us and
contribute to our discussions," said Sandra Newman, director of
the Institute for Policy Studies. "The fellows reached some
conclusions that we hope will be useful to Baltimore and other
post-industrial cities that are trying to retool their
economies."

Many of the fellows--all of whom had studied at IPS at some
point in their careers over the past 30 years--hailed Baltimore
as an international model yet, after a tour of the city's poorest
neighborhoods, were surprised by the conditions of the inner
city.

"Baltimore has taught us a number of lessons," explained Ian
Appleton, professor of architecture at the University of
Edinburgh, who was an Urban Fellow at Johns Hopkins in 1972. "The
developments focused on the Inner Harbor have been models for
many cities in the United Kingdom, especially if they have a
stretch of waterfront. Returning to Baltimore, I can see many
successes." But he termed the condition of some city communities,
once models of revitalization, as "appalling."

Appleton and others pointed out the need for more balanced
planning to rebuild neighborhoods. U.S. cities, they said, have
taken two extreme positions, either planning from the top down,
which becomes overly authoritarian, or solely from the bottom
up.

Fellows talked with Reps. Benjamin Cardin and Elijah
Cummings and Sen. Paul Sarbanes in Washington, D.C. Frank Vonk, a
city planner from the Netherlands, questioned the lack of
national urban policy in the United States, an issue that he had
raised in testimony in congressional hearings more than 10 years
ago.

"We don't really have an urban strategy," acknowleged
Sarbanes. "We've never put together the pieces." Such legislation
is hard to pass, he said, as voters move out of cities and into
the suburbs or rural areas. On the question of lack of
comprehensive planning in cities, Pittsburgh mayor Tom Murphy
pointed out that Americans traditionally place individual
property rights over what the government tells them to do. The
mayors' roundtable discussion also featured O'Malley, Mayor
Anthony Williams of Washington, D.C., and Edward Rendell, former
mayor of Philadelphia.

All the mayors acknowledged that urban problems such as
crime can appear unyielding. O'Malley related that his
predecessor, Kurt Schmoke, gave him a present after his
inauguration. "It was the most valuable gift he could have given
me. He said, 'For the next year, you can blame everything on
me.'"

Edward Burns, co-author of The Corner, the
best-selling book that was made into an HBO mini-series, singled
out drug treatment as a critical need, in an appearance at
Homewood's Glass Pavilion. There are in the city 60,000 drug
addicts, whose lives are centered on sustaining their habits,
Burns pointed out. "When you come to the corner, everything's
very simple. Get the blast [the drugs]. That's the only rule."

The conference participants drafted recommendations for the
city in five major policy areas: housing redevelopment,
vulnerable neighborhoods, West Side downtown redevelopment, large
entertainment complexes and industrial reuse. These will be
finalized and distributed to city leaders and interested citizens
by the end of the summer.